Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/259



1. find on investigation that the principle which really holds together the fabric of this world of ours, down to its smallest detail, is none other than order; that is to say, the proper division of what comes before and what comes after, of the superior and the subordinate, of the large and the small, of the similar and dissimilar, according to place, time, number, size, and weight, so that each may fulfil its function well. Order, therefore, has been called the soul of affairs. For everything that is well ordered preserves its position and its strength as long as it maintains its order; it is when it ceases to do so that it grows weak, totters, and falls. This may be seen clearly in instances taken from nature and from art.

2. Through what agency, I ask, does the world maintain its present condition ? what is it that gives it its great stability? It is this, that each creature, obeying the command of nature, restrains its action within the proper limits; and thus, by careful observation of order in small details, the order of the universe is maintained.

3. Through what agency is the flux of time divided so accurately and so continuously into years, months, and days? Through none but the inflexible order of the vault of heaven.

4. What enables bees, ants, and spiders to do work of